Page:A new and general biographical dictionary; containing an historical and critical account of the lives and writings of the most eminent persons in every nation v1.djvu/370

 A R N I S IE U S. wittr in phyfician to the king. He travelled into France and Eng [?.' arl land, and died in November, 162^' H wrote many other Bioj>r. ad i r J i -i / L ann. 1635. pieces upon government, pnyiic, and philolophy. Ibid. ARNOBIUS, profeflbr of rhetoric atSicca, in Numidis, towards the end of the third century. It was owin^ to cer- J Cj tain dreams which he had, tha: he became defirous to em- brace Chriltianity ; for which purpofe he applied to the Fieron. in bifhops, to be admitted into the church ; but they, remerv.- p h [b d Bering the violence with which he had .always oppofed the annum 2. true faith, had fome difrruft of him, and,* before they would Oivmp. admit him, infifted on fome proofs of his fincerity. Incom- pliance with this demand, he wrote againft the Gentiles, re- futing the abfurdities of their religion, and ridiculing their falfe gods. He employed all the flowers of rhetoric, and dif^ played great learning ; bur, from an impatience to be admitted into the body of the faithful, he is thought to have been in d too great a huny, whence there does not appear in this piece ^ uc ^ exai ^ Older ai'd difpofition as could be wifhed j and then, not having a peifecl knowledge of the Chrillian faith, he publifhed fome very dangerous errors. Mr. Bayle remarks, that his notions about the origin of the foul, and the caule of natural evil, with feveral other important point?, are highly P. io4.apud pernicious. St. Jerom, in his epiftle to Paulinus, is of opi- Cavc s uion that his ft vie is unequal and too diffufe, and that hrs Hift.Lirera-,. . J. ., , IA ^. . .. ria, p. joz. t 100 ^ |S written without any method ; but Dr. Lave thinks edit. Coiojn. this judgement too fevere, and that Arnobius wants neither ADobrog, e ]egance nor order in his compofhion. Voflius ftyles him ' the Varro of the ecclefiaftical writers. Du Pin obferves that , lib. i. n i $ work is written in a manner worthy of a profefibr of 9. rhetorick : the turn of his fentiments is very oratorical, but his ftyle a little African, and his exprefiions harfli and in- elegant. We have feveral edition? of this work of Arnobius againft the Gentiles ; but the beft by far is that of Leyden, 1651, in 410, with the notes of Elmenhorftius and other learned men. He wrote aifo a piece intituled " De rhetorica inftitu- ARNOLD, a famous heretic of the twelfth century, born at Brefcia in Italy, whence he went to France, where he ihidied under the celebrated Peter Abelard. Upon his return to Italy, he put on the habit of a monk, and began to preach feveral new and uncommon doflrines, particularly that the pope -and, theclergy ought not to enjoy any temporal eftate : he 4 maintained
 * tione," but this is not extant.